1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic puncture needle that is inserted into a body cavity and used for delivering medicine and treatment devices into the body.
2. Description of Related Art
Hitherto, to inspect and diagnose an affected part in a body cavity, a procedure of sucking and removing body tissue and body fluid has been performed. This procedure is performed by observing the inside of a body cavity through an ultrasonic endoscope while using a puncture needle to pierce the stomach, the duodenal wall, or the like, and puncture a target region of an underlying organ such as the pancreas, the liver, or the kidney. This is termed Endoscopic Ultrasound-guided Fine-Needle Aspiration (EUS-FNA).
Instead of sucking out tissue or body fluid, the EUS-FNA procedure is recently being applied in research into treatment procedures for delivering medicine, a marker, or a substance such as a radioactive source from a puncture needle directly to the region of interest. In such treatment procedures, by delivering the substance accurately to the region of interest, we can expect the effect of the treatment to be enhanced and side-effects to be reduced. It is therefore preferable to perform the procedure while using an ultrasonic endoscope to observe the substance as it is actually being delivered.